If further analysis proves the study correct, the remains belong to the first known such hybrid, providing direct evidence that humans and Neanderthals interbred.

The present study focuses on the individual’s jaw – unearthed at a rock-shelter called Riparo di Mezzena in the Monti Lessini region of Italy. Both Neanderthals and modern humans inhabited Europe at the time.

Co-author Silvana Condemi, an anthropologist and CNRS research director at the University of Ai-Marseille, told Discovery News that from the morphology of the lower jaw, the face of the individual may have looked somehow intermediate between classic Neanderthals, who had a rather receding lower jaw (no chin), and the modern humans, who have a projecting lower jaw with a strongly developed chin.

The mandible from Mezzena. show more Frontal view : A, internal view : B, lateral view: C, superior view : D), inferior view – Credit: doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0059781.g001 Silvana Condemi, Aurelien Mounier, Paolo Giunti, Martina Lari, David Caramelli, Laura Longo

She and her colleagues studied the remains via DNA analysis and 3D imaging and compared the results with the same features from Homo sapiens.

The genetic analysis showed that the individual’s mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is Neanderthal and since this DNA is transmitted from a mother to her child, they conclude that it must have been a female Neanderthal who mated with a male Homo sapiens.

Condemi and her colleagues wrote that it supports the theory of a slow process of replacement of Neanderthals by the invading modern humans.

The research team also hinted that the modern humans may have raped female Neanderthals.

The paper has been published in PLoS ONE.

Source: ANI [March 28, 2013]

• P • I • T • O • T • I • is a multimedia digital rock art exhibition in the South Lecture Room of the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology (MAA), on display until March 23. This is the first time it has been on display in the UK.

It brings some of the earliest human figures in European rock art to life with interactive graphics, 3D printing and video games; exploring the potential links between the world of archaeology and the world of film, digital humanities and computer vision.

The images on display are just a fraction of the 300,000 rock engravings that act as an archive of nearly 10,000 years of human history at the UNESCO World Heritage Site in Valcamonica, detailing how a small clan of hunter-gatherers eventually became part of the Roman Empire.

Still from the PITOTI film -v Credit: Prehistoric Picture Unit

The engravings were made from as early as 7,000BC and continued to be made right up till the 16th century AD, with the richest activity taking place in the Iron Age (1100BC-200BC, before the Roman Empire).

Now, a host of artists have injected digital life into these rock-art figures, with video projections, an ambient cinema and an interactive touch screen table where multiple visitors can explore and play with a digitised rock face.

A large projection of the Valcamonica is hooked up to a video-game style joystick which can be used to navigate the valley and discover the carvings, and detailed scans have allowed the creation of 3D printed panels which visitors can touch.

Dr Frederick Baker, Senior Research Associate at the McDonald Institute of Archaeological Research, said: “Human beings have engraved the rocks with their everyday lives and stories. It’s a kind of visual autobiography. Through the help of digitisation we discover this tribe and get insight into the symbols which actually adorn the rock, to get these symbols moving.

“These images created by humans depict animals to tell of hunting and aspects of everyday life. Computer visual science, film, 3D and graphic design explore ancient prehistoric art forms.

“Visitors can interact and discover with their fingers in a tactile manner that was impossible until today. Now in the 21st century digital art allows the rock art to move from the valley onto the screens and into the digital world that surrounds us.”

The exhibition grew from years of research by Dr Christopher Chippindale and Dr Frederick Baker, both members of the Cambridge University Prehistoric Picture Project. Pitoti is a word from the Lombard dialect and is a local word describing these engraved figures as “little puppets”.

Dr Chippindale said: “What European rock art gives us is the world of prehistoric Europeans, as they themselves experienced it and understood it. Our prehistoric ancestors chose to make engravings of animals, but few of plants. Many of deer, but few of sheep, and vast numbers of armed warriors in opposed pairs. Why? Because those aspects of their lives were vital and central to them.”

The images depicted also tell the story of how innovations spread across continents.

“Horses appear, as do ploughs and carts,” said Professor Graham Baker from the MacDonald Institute. “Their wheels are a huge innovation which leads later to chariots. The engravings of musical instruments remind us that the arts were also part of prehistoric life.”

According to Dr Baker, the link between the rock art and the digital animations are stronger than might be imagined.

He added: “Some of the humans and animals in the art are made in rather rigid forms. Others look to be in lively, animated motion – frozen at a certain moment as if they were stills from an animated cartoon. What the figures cannot do is move: there were no film cameras or animation studios in prehistoric times. But with our cameras and studios, today we can take the metaphor literally. So much the ancient artists could not do – working only with hammer and stone against tough resistant rock – our new digital technologies can.”

Source: University of Cambridge [March 08, 2013]

The dirty, ragged part is understandable. After all, in the Mesolithic period there were no washing or sewing machines. And, unless your cave was near a convenient waterfall, a shower was out of the question. That much can be gleaned by scientists studying remains of those ancient peoples, along with the tools they used, as well as the foods which made up their diet.

And that’s where the nice teeth came in.

Apparently, since the advent of industrialized, mass produced food in the last 150 years, our mouths are taking a beating. And it’s our modern teeth which are suffering the most.

According to Nature.com, a study of the lifestyles of Neolithic peoples has lead to the conclusion that our ancient ancestors didn’t need to see a dentist very often. Which is good, considering they probably didn’t have very many at the time. Apparently, hunting and gathering were just about the only career choices available in those days.

The study, conducted by Dr Christina Adler of the Australian Center for Ancient DNA, University of Adelaide, looked at the skeletal remains of 34 Europeans and found that their teeth were remarkably free of cavities and retained much more of the vital dental plaque which protects teeth from harmful bacteria and decay.

“What we found was that the early hunter-gatherer groups really had a lot lower frequencies of any of the disease-associated bacteria compared to what you see today, and that the number of species per person’s mouth, or the diversity, was much higher in the past,” says Adler.

The findings lead to the assumption there’s something in our food today which promotes unusually virulent tooth decay. Scientists have long suspected that the modern diet, full of refined carbohydrates and sugars, has given us mouths dominated by cavity-causing bacteria. This study seems to bear that suspicion out.

Of course, the trade-off has been an extended lifespan, thanks mostly to a softer lifestyle. Who knows what those cave people’s teeth would’ve looked like if they’d lived past the age of 30 or so?

And just think. No flossing… Via, Bubblews.com

The results, which are 85 per cent accurate when compared to the painstaking manual reconstructions performed by linguists, will be published next week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“We’re hopeful our tool will revolutionize historical linguistics much the same way that statistical analysis and computer power revolutionized the study of evolutionary biology,” says UBC Assistant Prof. of Statistics Alexandre Bouchard-Côté, lead author of the study.

“And while our system won’t replace the nuanced work of skilled linguists, it could prove valuable by enabling them to increase the number of modern languages they use as the basis for their reconstructions.”

Examples of Protolanguage Words Reconstructed By UBC Tool – Credit: University of British Columbia

The new tool designed by Bouchard-Côté and colleagues at the University of California, Berkeley analyzes sound changes at the level of basic phonetic units, and can operate at much greater scale than previous computerized tools.

The researchers reconstructed a set of protolanguages from a database of more than 142,000 word forms from 637 Austronesian languages-spoken in Southeast Asia, the Pacific and parts of continental Asia.

Protolanguages
Most protolanguages do not leave written records-but in some instances reconstructions can be partially verified against ancient texts or literary histories. A notable exception is well-documented Latin, the protolanguage of the Romance languages, which include modern French, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian, Catalan and Spanish.

Source: University of British Columbia [February 11, 2013]

It’s probably better that so few of the ruins and remains were tied in with the Smithsonian because they give good reason to believe the ending of the Indiana Jones movie—a great warehouse where the real secrets of earth history are buried.

Modern day archaeology and anthropology have nearly sealed the door on our imaginations, broadly interpreting the North American past as devoid of anything unusual in the way of great cultures characterized by a people of unusual demeanor. The great interloper of ancient burial grounds, the nineteenth century Smithsonian Institution, created a one-way portal, through which uncounted bones have been spirited. This door and the contents of its vault are virtually sealed off to anyone, but government officials. Among these bones may lay answers not even sought by these officials concerning the deep past.

The first hint we had about the possible existence of an actual race of tall, strong, and intellectually sophisticated people, was in researching old township and county records. Many of these were quoting from old diaries and letters that were combined, for posterity, in the 1800s from diaries going back to the 1700s. Says Vine in this understanding:

Some of these old county and regional history books contain real gems because the people were not subjected to a rigid indoctrination about evolution and were astonished about what they found and honestly reported it.

Some time before archaeology came to subscribe the general public to its view of prehistory—generations prior to Darwin’s troublesome theory—the pioneers thought that some of the earthworks were as ancient as could be concurrent with human habitation in America. Some among the early settlers exercised their pens assured that the earthworks were not built by the direct ancestry of the native people living in the historical period, but rather were constructed in a more remote era encompassing a different social order. They compared the “Mound Builders,” with the “Indians,” clearly discerning the former as belonging to an earlier time—possessing a different fate or destiny from the latter.

Evidence for the occupation of this region before the appearance of the red man and the white race is to be found in almost every part of the county, as well as through the northwest generally. In removing the gravel bluffs, which are numerous and deep, for the construction and repair of roads, and in excavating cellars, hundreds of human skeletons, some of them of giant form, have been found. A citizen of Marion County estimates that there were about as many human skeletons in the knolls of Marion County as there are white inhabitants at present!

The History of Marion County, Ohio
(complied from past accounts, published in 1883)
Mastodonic remains are occasionally unearthed, and, from time to time, discoveries of the remains of Indian settlements are indicated by the appearance of gigantic skeletons, with the high cheek bones, powerful jaws and massive frames peculiar of the red man, who left these as the only record with which to form a clew to the history of past ages.

The History of Brown County, Ohio
(complied from past accounts, published in 1883)
She said also that three skeletons were found at the mouth of the Paw Paw Creek many years later, while Nim (Nimrod) Satterfield was justice of the peace. Jim Dean and some men were digging for a bridge foundation and found these bones at the lower end of the old buffalo wallow. She thought it was Dr. Kidwell, of Fairmont, who examined them and said they were very old, perhaps thousands of years old. She said that when the skeletons were exposed to the weather for a few days, their bones turned black and began to crumble, that Squire Satterfield had them buried in the Joliffe graveyard (Rivesville). All these skeletons, she said, were measured, and found to be about eight feet long.

Now and Long Ago-A History of the Marion County Area
by Glen Lough (1969)
Another of many examples, this one, collected by James Mooney (1861-1921), tells of the visit of very tall people from the west: James Wafford, of the western Cherokee, who was born in Georgia in 1806, says that his grandmother, who must have been born about the middle of the last century, told him that she had heard from the old people that long before her time a party of giants had once come to visit the Cherokee. They were nearly twice as tall as common men, and had their eyes set slanting in their heads, so that the Cherokee called them Tsunil´ kalu´, “the Slant-eyed people,” because they looked like the giant hunter Tsul´ kalu´. They said that these giants lived far away in the direction in which the sun goes down. The Cherokee received them as friends, and they stayed some time, and then returned to their home in the west…

This kind of recorded tradition did not start with Mooney, rather beginning early in American history. During the Colonial and post-Colonial era, the information seekers were keen on gathering as much knowledge of the forgotten past as feasible through native sources. Some of it was woven into romantic tales including verse, but the main of it went into records, which, like the accumulation of earth and debris over ancient village sites, became buried in the musty stacks of old libraries—considered to have no real “substance” in the emerging field of the white man’s science.

Of the very early history of the region which now embraces Lake County but little can be written. The Mound Builders had occupied it and passed away, leaving no written language and but little even as tradition… These mounds were quite numerous… Excavations…have revealed the crumbling bones of a mighty race. Samuel Miller, who has resided in the county since 1835, is authority for the statement that one skeleton which he assisted in unearthing was a trifle more than eight feet in length, the skull being correspondingly large, while many other skeletons measured at least seven feet…

Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois and History of Lake County
Edited by Newton Bateman, LL.D. and Paul Selby, A.M. (1902)
From the outset of North American archaeology, no federally sponsored concern has researched and collected evidence specifically emphasizing the existence of unusually tall Native Americans in prehistoric, and even in historic times. There are reasons for this oversight, though in hindsight it has placed limits on our overview of prehistory. Because there were only occasional people of large stature born among the light-skinned, European races, numbers of giants were far from anticipated in America. Scientists in Europe, in case-by-case studies, declared their giants to have been victims of pituitary disorder. Another reason was that when the private citizenry in the U.S. unearthed the bones of very tall and strongly constructed people, and when these disinterments were recorded, rarely was any comparison made with sites of similar contents. It was still a sort of wilderness in many rural areas right until the middle 1800s. In this, each discovery was sort of “unique”—only to end up in the stacks of old township libraries to be complied later as curiosities—if they survived at all. The following account originated around the year 1800:

There were mounds situated in the eastern part of the village of Conneaut and an extensive burying-ground near the Presbyterian church, which appear to have had no connection with the burying-places of the Indians. Among the human bones found in the mounds were some belonging to men of gigantic structure. Some of the skulls were of sufficient capacity to admit the head of an ordinary man, and jaw bones that might have been fitted on over the face with equal facility; the other bones were proportionately large. The burying-ground referred to contained about four acres, and with the exception of a slight angle in conformity with the natural contour of the ground was in the form of an oblong square. It appeared to have been accurately surveyed into lots running from north to south, and exhibited all the order and propriety of arrangement deemed necessary to constitute Christian burial…

Historical Collections of Ohio in Two Volumes
by Henry Howe, LL.D. (1888)
Although not regarded by the government as reliable, the oral traditions of the native people in the eastern U.S. aver of the existence of possibly two races of giants, one supplanting the other by violent means. Here we have the first inkling of some very remote prehistory preserved, through the tradition of the Chippewa, Sandusky, and Tawa tribes, (members of the Algonquin language group), the existence of giant, bearded men.

In this connection I would say that Mr. Jonathan Brooks, now living in town, stated to me, that his father, Benjamin Brooks, who lived with the Indians fourteen years, and was well-acquainted with their language and traditions, told him and others that it was a tradition of the Indians that the first tribe occupying this whole country, was a black-bearded race, very large in size, and subsequently a red bearded race or tribe came and killed or drove off all the black beards, as they called them.

The Firelands Pioneer (1858)
Offsetting the carefully recorded diaries of the rural folk, there were popular writers who creatively developed the more contemporary histories and folk legends, leaving to cursory treatment the deeper accounts of North American antiquities. These authors, while having captured the essence of the public perception of the noble native tradition, were not reconciled to the antique body of legend. The pens of James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851) and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882) relate virtually nothing of the tall ones. Native Americans, as we know, were discouraged from writing, although some, such as David Cusick, circumvented the bias using Christian names. Fortunately, early missionary concerns gathered oral tradition from the tribal elders concerning men of giant stature.

But even the most informative or entertaining accounts could not instill enough respect for the native people to put an end to the further destruction of the sacred sites. The attitude of the white race in general toward the red race was an abomination, totally lacking in mercy and compassion. Many of the Native American skulls were compared with European skulls, but selectively so as to depict the current native populace as being of inferior intelligence. Almost without resistance, the black seeds of racial bias were forming in the uncorrupted soil of prehistoric interpretation. Take for example the words of an important government official and popular writer, Henry Schoolcraft (1793-1864):

The Indian has a low, bushy brow, beneath which a dull, sleepy, half-closed eye seems to mark the ferocious passions that are dormant within. The acute angles of the eyes seldom present the obliquity so common in the Malays and the Mongolians. The color of the eye is almost uniformly a tint between black and grey; but even in young persons it seldom has the brightness, or expresses the vivacity, so common in the more civilized races.

Bureau of Indian Affairs (1852)
Schoolcraft, who himself married a half-Indian woman, was apparently predisposed to labeling the native people in general as inferior. This kind of ridiculous prejudice underscored the tone for the unbridled continuation of the earthwork debacle. The result of this is accurately reflected in how archaeology was organized more than one hundred years ago, and may be summed up in the policy of Joseph Henry, first secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. Says Henry in 1846: “The collection of data should precede theorizing…” Unfortunately, the collection of data seemed to have no end, and any subsequent theorizing was (and is) in a state of transience. The Smithsonian, playing a sort of leading role in the massive undertaking attempting to cast light on the inscrutable prehistory of the United States, inadvertently collected far too many relics to ever analyze in a comprehensive sense. Estimates of the number of moundworks in Ohio alone—at the end of the Colonial period—topped ten thousand. Today, less than one-twentieth of these exist, and, moreover, they exist in a reconstructed form. No quarter of special status was given to any earthwork, no matter how sacred or strategic to tribal lands. It was a holocaust of an unprecedented nature, for it undermined the very morale of the native people who understood the peace of their ancestors to be ruined.

Differing only in the professionalism somewhat absent from the previous seventy years of ghoulish quests, Henry’s mandate dictated emphasis on the creation of an inclusive system of excavation, recording, and description. Any analysis that followed had to be based upon this criterion. But competent analysis of anomalies rarely (if ever) came from the Smithsonian and other institutions formally engaged in the practice of exhumation. Given this understanding, it is no wonder that the Smithsonian is believed by knowledgeable people to be actively stymieing research that would produce a more enlightened view of American prehistory.

There is, however, some compensation for this oversight in that the Smithsonian, like the Peabody, and the Carnegie shortly thereafter, faithfully upheld Henry’s mandate to detail, as was feasible, their mound “explorations.” However, the present-day inaccessibility of the bones and objects these people removed for future study is a reflection and symptom of the proposed “oversight.” One thing that pleased us in this research effort was the fact that there were many skeletons of gigantic frame discovered and reported by the Smithsonian, boosting the validity and value of the old township diaries, as well as the native legends. Some of these are presented below.

A Brief History of the Museum
The Smithsonian Institution, easily the world’s largest museum complex, began from the generous gift of James Smithson, an English scientist, in 1829. Believed born a bastard (especially in the eyes of his later detractors), Smithson was a “diligent young student,” receiving a Master of Arts from Pembroke College, Oxford, in 1786. He became a distinguished scientist. The gentle man passed away in 1829, bequeathing his fortune to nephew James Henry Hungerford with the stipulation that if this man died without an heir, the remainder of the fortune would go to the United States. It seems he felt that the United States was the future of Britain. Perhaps Smithson saw the “New World” as fertile, worthy, intellectual territory.

Hungerford died in 1835. Although there was some controversy in the interim, the finding of the Smithsonian, based upon the more than a half million-dollar gift, took place officially in 1846. His legacy to the American people was, in his own words, “for the increase and diffusion of knowledge.” Since that time, the museum’s collections have increased considerably, with problems in the cataloging and location of stored finds developing due to changing standards of administrations over the last 150 years. Analogous to the Vatican with its antique cache of confiscated, problematic treasures, the booty of the Holy See may pale in comparison to the Smithsonian’s boatload of diffuse evidence. Pity of it is that Smithson’s request has gone into a different mode of interpretation. Instead of diffusing knowledge, it has unwittingly become confused with the problem of sprawling storage.

Powell and Thomas
Grave a, a stone sepulcher, 2½ feet wide, 8 feet long, and 2 feet deep, was formed by placing steatite slabs on edge at the sides and ends, and others across the top. The bottom consisted simply of earth hardened by fire. It contained the remains of a single skeleton, lying on its back, with the head east. The frame was heavy and about seven feet long. The head rested on a thin copper plate ornamented with impressed figures…

12th Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution 1890-1891
(published in 1894)(Cyrus Thomas’ investigations of Etowah)
In 1882, after some thirty-six years of growth and sound management, Smithsonian executive John Wesley Powell (of Grand Canyon exploration fame 1869-1872), hired Cyrus Thomas. Powell wanted this man to head up the fieldwork for the Smithsonian’s newly created Bureau of Ethnology, specifically the Eastern Mound Division. Thomas was a minister and an entomologist whose broadened interests included archaeology. He was, inotherwords, a bible-advocating, insect-adept archaeologist who believed in the mystery of a lost race at the time of his being recruited. Powell, who was much in sympathy with the plight of Native Americans, having lived among them for a length of time, believed that there was no lost or mysterious race of mound builders. He desired to credit the downtrodden native people with the worthy and gentle arts associated with the ancient mound building societies. Subsequently, and in light of other politic considerations marking the era, Powell sought to enact these personal convictions through the instrumentality of Thomas. In spite of his personal beliefs, Thomas was not outspokenly resistant to accepting the position. Besides, Congress was allocating solid funding for this proposed ramble through the ancient landscape.

There was apparently an important decision made at this time concerning the facilitation of an enveloping theory—so necessary to create order where chaos loomed. Before discharging a book, one logically creates an outline to guide one’s thoughts. This was to become a hierarchical arrangement that would decide the angle of vision for the categorizing of the finds that would be made. On one hand, the belief that others discovered North America before Columbus (such as Phoenician, Egyptian, Hebraic, Greek, Roman, Celt, Scandinavian, or even Asian mariners) was explored.

On the other hand, the idea of the continent having been isolated from outside influences was put on the table. It was perhaps because of Powell’s deference to the native kinship that the latter idea—i.e., screening out any extra-continental visitors—was adopted. Needless to say, this was an extraordinary assumption, and one that has affected decision-making right until the present day. On the positive side it viably linked the living factions of the Native American people with the more ancient mound building folk, and shortly thereafter was responsible for the faintly successful preservation of what remained of the mound builder’s legacy. From this it may be understood how aspects of Powell’s work, such as analysis of the social order of the mound builders, was not a priority.

Powell’s decision regarding isolation was in reality a two-edged sword. While it was a meaningful step that fostered a meager though important harmonic between the federal government and the native people, it was regrettably based upon a false notion. An example of its contradiction is found right in the 12th Annual Report itself. Again and again Thomas and his operatives came up with anomalous evidence directly questioning Powell’s sweeping suppositions.

Cave burials occur in this district in the following counties: In Grayson, Hart, Edmonson, Barren, Warren, and Fayette counties; Kentucky; Smith, White, Warren, Giles, Marion, and Fentress counties, Tennessee, and Bartow county, Georgia. These localities lie mostly in a belt extending in a north and south direction through the center of the district.

In most of these caves, both in Kentucky and Tennessee, the bodies appear to have been laid on the floor of the cave, sometimes in beds of ashes, sometimes on a pavement of flat stones. There are, however, some instances in which the bodies have been found incased in stone slabs, and afterwards imbedded in clay or ashes. In Smith and Warren counties, Tennessee, and in Warren and Fayette counties, Kentucky, the flesh of the bodies was preserved and the hair was yellow and of fine texture. In some cases the bodies were enveloped in several thicknesses of coarse cloth with an outer wrapping of deer skin. Some of the bodies were wrapped in a kind of cloth made of bark fiber, into which feathers were woven in such a manner as to form a smooth surface. In two cases the bodies, placed in a sitting or squatting posture, were incased in baskets. In one of the caves in Smith county the body of a female is said to have been found, having about the waist a silver girdle, with marks resembling letters.

12th Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution 1890-1891
(published in 1894) (explorations in the Tennessee District)
Armed with a self-created doctrine powered by ample funding, and with a little help later from the one-way door to the Smithsonian’s inaccessible catacombs, the years that followed saw Powell and his underling nearly succeed in the obliteration of the last notions of the legendary, mysterious, and antique class of mound building people, and for that matter, any people that didn’t fit into the mold of his theory. Did Powell intentionally overlook some of the archaeology so as to focus on his own special agenda?

Powell and his associates at the Bureau were quite certain that people had arrived in the Americas only sometime after the first Egyptian dynasty—less than 4500 years ago! They also believed that the Mississippi Valley was sufficiently isolated from the Ohio Valley to warrant the simultaneous flourishing of quite distinct cultures over a long period. Since carbon dating was not yet discovered, Thomas used stratigraphic (after Lyell) analysis and, following the rest of the mandate, included detailed record keeping and documentation whenever appropriate. His findings were broadly accepted, and are still referenced.

Underneath the layer of shells the earth was very dark and appeared to be mixed with vegetable mold to the depth of 1 foot. At the bottom of this, resting on the original surface of the ground, was a very large skeleton lying horizontally at full length. Although very soft, the bones were sufficiently distinct to allow of careful measurement before attempting to remove them. The length from the base of the skull to the bones of the toes was found to be 7 feet 3 inches. It is probable, therefore, that this individual when living was fully 7½ feet high. At the head lay some small pieces of mica and a green substance, probably the oxide of copper, though no ornament or article of copper was discovered.

12th Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution 1890-1891
(published in 1894) (explorations in Roane County, Tennessee)
But Thomas’ time was limited because of the large territory he was to explore. Under such working conditions, anomalies were put aside for future research—to be, as it has turned out, forgotten. Thomas was forced to rely on the accounts of operatives in many cases. Evidently, some of these people discerned between “Indian” burials and the burials of the Mound Builders, perhaps challenging the patience of Powell.

No. 5, the largest of the group was carefully examined. Two feet below the surface, near the apex, was a skeleton, doubtless an intrusive Indian burial… Near the original surface, 10 or 12 feet from the center, on the lower side, lying at full length on its back, was one of the largest skeletons discovered by the Bureau agents, the length as proved by actual measurement being between 7 and 8 feet. It was clearly traceable, but crumbled to pieces immediately after removal from the hard earth in which it was encased….

12th Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution 1890-1891
(published in 1894)(mounds at Dunleith, Illinois)
Regarding the problem of “intrusive” Indian burials, what kind of a time gap were these men looking at between the original burials and the later ones? As his agents uncovered the physical evidence for powerful men of towering stature, Thomas held the position that any and all skeletal remains represented the direct ancestry of the present day people. Was it not plausible to consider an extended “family” or hierarchical group of very tall folk who served with the people? Were they selective enough in their sexual associations to appear, overall, as a race with its own peculiarities and even physical characteristics? The findings that didn’t fit in to the guideline established by his superior were summarily recorded and forgotten by Thomas—a legacy we have inherited today.
An old Indian mound has been opened on the farm of Harrison Robinson, four miles East of Jackson, Ohio, and two skeletons of extraordinary size and a great quantity of trinkets have been removed. Some years ago a party of relic hunters, supposed to have been sent out in the interest of the Archeological society visited the Robinson farm, and after a few days search removed a great collection of stone hatchets, beads and bracelets, which were packed and shipped to an Eastern institute, and until this recent accidental discovery it was supposed that everything had been removed by the relic hunters. It is thought by many that more relics are to be found and preparations are being made for a through investigation.

The Adair County News January 5, 1897 (Kentucky)
What has become of all the evidence? Again and again, only a single long skeleton or two was found among those of normal size. The understanding of tall, ruling chiefs and their wives was not developed at all, as is evident in these examples.

The other, situated on the point of a commanding bluff, was also conical in form, 50 feet in diameter and about 8 feet high. The outer layer consisted in sandy soil, 2 feet thick, filled with slightly decayed skeletons, probably Indians of intrusive burials. The earth of the main portion of this mound was a very fine yellowish sand which shoveled like ashes and was everywhere, to a depth of 2 to 4 feet, as full of human skeletons as could be stowed away in it, even to two and three tiers. Among these were a number of bones not together as skeletons, but mingled in confusion and probably from scaffolds or other localities. Excepting one, which was rather more than 7 feet long, these skeletons appeared to be of medium size and many of them much decayed…

12th Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution 1890-1891 (published in 1894) (Pike County, Illinois)
No. 11 is now 35 by 40 feet at the base and 4 feet high. In the center, 3 feet below the surface, was a vault 8 feet long and 3 feet wide. In the bottom of this, among the decayed fragments of bark wrappings, lay a skeleton fully seven feet long, extended at full length on the back, head west. Lying in a circle above the hips were fifty-two perforated shell disks about an inch in diameter and one-eighth of an inch thick.

12th Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution 1890-1891 (published in 1894) (Kanawha County, West Virginia)
Largest in the collective series of mounds, the Great Smith Mound yielded at least two large skeletons, but at different levels of its deconstruction by Thomas’ agents. It was 35 feet in height and 175 feet in diameter, and was constructed in at least two stages, according to the report. The larger of the two skeletons represented a man conceivably approaching eight feet in height when living.

At a depth of 14 feet, a rather large human skeleton was found, which was in a partially upright position with the back against a hard clay wall…All the bones were badly decayed, except those of the left wrist, which had been preserved by two heavy copper bracelets…

Nineteen feet from the top the bottom of this debris was reached, where, in the remains of a bark coffin, a skeleton measuring 7½ feet in length and 19 inches across the shoulders, was discovered. It lay on the bottom of the vault stretched horizontally on the back, head east, arms by the sides… Each wrist was encircled by six heavy copper bracelets…Upon the breast was a copper gorget…length, 3½ inches; greatest width 3¾ inches…

12th Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution 1890-1891 (published in 1894) (Kanawha County, West Virginia)
The pressure of the time schedule doubtless made it inconvenient to seriously consider the possibility of an ancient lineage of leaders taking the form of very tall people. The fact of gigantic stature never settled in as a clue to a greater mystery, and the evidences of very tall, ruggedly built men vanished—and often enough into the Smithsonian’s temporary charnel house of pre-Columbian miscellany.

Three feet above…the skeleton of a large, strongly built man lay extended at full length with the face up, the head toward the east…The skull was obtained almost entire. Under it were thirteen water-worn quartz pebbles. The femur measured 18½ inches…

12th Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution 1890-1891 (published in 1894) (Union County, Mississippi)
A femur (thigh bone) exceeding eighteen inches would indicate a man of very great height-easily over seven feet. Femurs exceeding twenty inches have been found however. Though hindsight is said to be 20/20, Thomas’ methodology was little better than a government-sanctioned dissolution of the sacred burial places. He dismantled the sanctuaries and charnel houses with the fervor of a man whose first priority was to impress his employer. From Florida to Nebraska—including twenty-three states and Canada’s Manitoba region—over the next seven years he and his agents worked like men possessed of a deadline.

A large Indian mound near the town of Gastersville, [Gastonville?—Ed.] Pa., has recently been opened and examined by a committee of scientists sent out from the Smithsonian Institute. At some depth from the surface a kind of vault was found in which was discovered the skeleton of a giant measuring seven feet two inches. His hair was coarse and jet black, and hung to the waist, the brow being ornamented with a copper crown. The skeleton was remarkably well preserved…On the stones which covered the vault were carved inscriptions, and these when deciphered, will doubtless lift the veil that now shrouds the history of the race of people that at one time inhabited this part of the American continent. The relics have been carefully packed and forwarded to the Smithsonian Institute, and they are said to be the most interesting collection ever found in the United States.

American Antiquarian, 7:52, 1885
Could this special burial have been another kingly individual? In these increasingly hasty intrusions into the native burial grounds’ inherent sanctity, the holocaust delivered its zenith under the officialdom action of former Union Major Powell. This man who in his youth had lived among the “Indians,” somehow was insensitive to the sanctuary of their graveyards. But others came later to do a fair share of damage as well, all in the name of information gathering. The prehistory of eastern North America is not what we have been asked to accept from the efforts Cyrus Thomas, nor from the subsequent authorities who based so much of their work upon his, and the reason is worth repeating—many or most of the oldest mounds and subterranean burial acreages were promptly destroyed long before any focused “scientific” effort came on the scene.

Apart from the disregard of the settlers’ records, the other part of the problem is the labyrinthine mausoleum that is the Smithsonian bone and artifact collection. In sum, we today are deprived of the real knowledge of the more ancient lineage. The early settlers observed that the giants of old may have passed on their grand stature to the later native people, for there were individuals among their later progression who were of a size and build that goes beyond our current notions of Native American physicality.

The Telling of the Bones
It is difficult not to understand the probability of an elite lineage of tall men and women who propagated their own genetic inheritance. These people lived, worked, and bred together. Were their marriages arranged to ensure the continuance of the grand stature in roles of leadership and protection? In his classic Red Earth, White Lies, Vine says:

From talking with elders of several tribes, my understanding is that the Indians were and are describing people of more than average height. In fact, some elders as a routine matter have reported that the Indians themselves were much larger and taller.

The question has been raised asking whether there was giant stature among the Native American people in earlier historic times. From Hardesty’s History of Monroe County, Ohio, we discovered this:
He further told me of the killing of a big Indian at Buckchitawa, about the time of the settlement at Marietta. The Indians had a white prisoner whom they forced to decoy boats to the shore. A small boat was descending the river containing white people, when this prisoner was placed under the bank to tell those in the boat that he had escaped captivity, and to come to the shore and take him in. The Indians were concealed, but the big Indian stuck his head out from behind a large tree, when it was pierced by a bullet from the gun of the steersman of the boat. The Indians cried out Wetzel, Wetzel, and fled. This was the last ever seen of the prisoner. The Indians returned next day and buried the big Indian, who, he said, was twenty inches taller than he was, and he was a tall man. When Chester Bishop was digging a cellar for Asahel Booth, at Clarington, many years ago, he came across a skeleton, the bones of which were removed carefully by Dr. Richard Kirkpatrick, and from his measurement the height of the man when living would have been 8 feet and 5 inches. It is probable that these were the bones of the big Indian of whom the Indian at Jackson’s told me.

And again this:
A large quantity of human bones was discovered in a fissure in the limestone near the United States Coast Guard lighthouse. A crude tomb of black stone slabs, of a formation not known on the island, was found many years ago beneath the roots of a huge stump. Eight skeletons were found, one measuring over seven feet in height.

Sketches and Stories of the Lake Erie Islands by Theresa Thorndale, Sandusky (1898)
Some of the settlers and their descendents may have seen clearly, but the representatives of the Smithsonian and other sanctioned institutions, in spite of good intentions, lacked the kind of thoroughness in their analyses that included a broadened field of vision. We have felt heartily from the beginning of this research that the Smithsonian is the recipient of mandates put into place well over 100 years ago. It is virtually exempt from NAGPRA (Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act), for the reason (say they) of there being too much data to finish analyzing to prepare for repatriation.

Concealing evidence that conflicts with accepted theory is common scientific skullduggery. For years the Smithsonian Institution has been accused of hiding in storage vaults things it doesn’t like. In 1968 two Neanderthal-like skulls with low foreheads and large brows were found in Minnesota. As for dating, University of Minnesota scientists said they were reluctant to destroy any of the material, although carbon-14 testing only requires the burning of one gram of bone. They were sent to the Smithsonian. Later Dr. Lawrence Angel, curator of physical anthropology at the institution, said he had no record of the skulls there, although he was sure they were not lost. We have a right to wonder whether some professional scientists mightn’t find a really early date for the bones distressing.

American Indian Myths and Mysteries Vincent H. Gaddis (1977)
Why distressing? Because no true Neanderthal remains have ever been recognized by any Federal authorities as originating on the North American continent, what to say of the Americas in general. Is there yet today a conflict between established theory and what has been physically discovered? Is the “ghost” of Powell yet haunting the halls of the Museum?

So what is the policy of the Smithsonian? Does the institution intentionally withhold information? Is the fact of a race of giant warriors and chieftains threatening to the closed, internal doctrine of American archaeology? That there was a race of men and women possessing an unusually tall and strong physicality living over an extensive area North America has become a forgotten fact.

There are other examples, and names like the Gungywamp Society of Connecticut, Ed Conrad, and others have bizarre stories to relate about the ineptitude or simple prejudice of the Smithsonian when dealing with their materials. In these examples, there is growing appreciation for an actual cover-up.

Another grotesque twist is the Army Medical Museum’s collection. According to the ABC News special “Skeletons in the Closet,” the United States government acquired a real interest in Indian corpses. The Surgeon General, in post-Civil War 1868, requested that the army collect the skulls, utensils, and weaponry of Native Americans “as far as you are able to procure them.” According to the report, these were to be sent to Washington, D.C. as part of a program that studied the effects of modern bullets and other weaponry on human bodies. The collection of such remains, estimated at 4,000, was taken mostly from grave and battle sites. What was left over became part of the Smithsonian collection estimated at 18,000 individuals, and this by way of the Army Medical Museum.

The objects here collected which have not been given, or acquired by exchange, have been purchased for the use of the museum by order of the surgeon-general… There is a skeleton of a giant, who, in life, measured seven feet, prepared by Auzoux and mounted by Blanchêne’s method, which, if I may use that term, is really a beauty. It is as white and clean as new fallen snow, and the brass joints and screws which keep it together are bright, and of the latest style and finish…

“The Army Medical Museum in Washington” by Louis Bagger. Appletons’ Journal: A Magazine Of General Literature Volume 9, Issue 206 (1873)
Today however, bones are no longer as good a source of information as they once were thought to be, and for several good reasons. Bone, while composed dominantly of the metallic calcium, yet is made up of organic molecules. Depending on moisture and temperature, it will decay, break down with time, and return to the condition of the soil after a certain number of centuries. Bone evidence has created over-emphasis on certain periods of prehistory, in this region the so-called “Hopewell” and “Fort Ancient” (Mississippian) people. Thus, a great proportion of the Archaic and early Adena bones discovered were decomposed beyond preservation. Due to a lack of skeletons other more antique periods have not received the same kind of recognition save from the better scholars affecting the interested public’s view of the ancient world. Ironically, the holocaust of giants, while deadening our sense of the past, may well serve as a lesson for the future. Source, xpeditionsmagazine

The mysterious rock beast was unearthed in the capital of Sichuan province today and is thought to be 2,000 years old.

The stone animal weighed in at 8.5 tons and at 10ft 10in long, 3ft 11in wide and 5ft 7in tall.

The animal has not been identified but it is possible that it depicts a giant panda as Sichuan is one of only three provinces in China which are included in the giant panda’s natural habitat.

Archaeologists working on the site also unearthed a large number of other artifacts, leading to the conclusion that the beast may have been part of a temple in the early days of Chengdu.

Chengdu has been the capital of the province since around the time the statue would have been created and is the only city in China to have remained in the same location under the same name for such a long time.

It has been at the core of the province for at least 4,000 years and has worked both as a religious and trade hub for the people in the area since.

Source: Daily Mail [January 10, 2013]

Native American populations – Credit: University College London

By studying variations in Native American DNA sequences, the international team found that while most of the Native American populations arose from the first migration, two subsequent migrations also made important genetic contributions. The paper is published in the journal Nature today.

“For years it has been contentious whether the settlement of the Americas occurred by means of a single or multiple migrations from Siberia,” said Professor Andres Ruiz-Linares (UCL Genetics, Evolution and Environment), who coordinated the study. “But our research settles this debate: Native Americans do not stem from a single migration. Our study also begins to cast light on patterns of human dispersal within the Americas.”

In the most comprehensive survey of genetic diversity in Native Americans so far, the team took data from 52 Native American and 17 Siberian groups, studying more than 300,000 specific DNA sequence variations called Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms to examine patterns of genetic similarities and differences between the population groups.

The second and third migrations have left an impact only in Arctic populations that speak Eskimo-Aleut languages and in the Canadian Chipewyan who speak a Na-Dene language. However, even these populations have inherited most of their genome from the First American migration. Eskimo-Aleut speakers derive more than 50% of their DNA from First Americans, and the Chipewyan around 90%. This reflects the fact that these two later streams of Asian migration mixed with the First Americans they encountered after they arrived in North America.

“There are at least three deep lineages in Native American populations,” said co-author David Reich, Professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School. “The Asian lineage leading to First Americans is the most anciently diverged, whereas the Asian lineages that contributed some of the DNA to Eskimo–Aleut speakers and the Na-Dene-speaking Chipewyan from Canada are more closely related to present-day East Asian populations.”

The team also found that once in the Americas, people expanded southward along a route that hugged the coast with populations splitting off along the way. After divergence, there was little gene flow among Native American groups, especially in South America.

Two striking exceptions to this simple dispersal were also discovered. First, Central American Chibchan-speakers have ancestry from both North and South America, reflecting back-migration from South Americaand mixture of two widely separated strands of Native ancestry. Second, the Naukan and coastal Chukchi from north-eastern Siberia carry ‘First American’ DNA. Thus, Eskimo-Aleut speakers migrated back to Asia, bringing Native American genes.

The team’s analysis was complicated by the influx into the hemisphere of European and African immigrants since 1492 and the 500 years of genetic mixing that followed. To address this, the authors developed methods that allowed them to focus on the sections of peoples’ genomes that were of entirely Native American origin.

“The study of Native American populations is technically very challenging because of the widespread occurrence of European and African mixture in Native American groups,” said Professor Ruiz-Linares.

“We developed a method to peel back this mixture to learn about the relationships among Native Americans before Europeans and Africans arrived,” Professor Reich said, “allowing us to study the history of many more Native American populations than we could have done otherwise.”

The assembly of DNA samples from such a diverse range of populations was only possible through a collaboration of an international team of 64 researchers from the Americas (Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Mexico, Peru, Russia and the USA), Europe (England, France, Spain and Switzerland) and Russia.

Source: University College London [July 12, 2012]

Justin Mukanku from the Wits Institute of Human Evolution spotted the tooth – Credit: University of the Witwatersrand

South African scientists will share the country’s latest fossil discovery with the world using live virtual technology.

Professor Lee Berger, a Reader in Palaeoanthropology and the Public Understanding of Science at the Wits Institute for Human Evolution,will the announcement at the Shanghai Science and Technology Museum in Shanghai, China on Friday, 13 July 2012 at 09:00 South African standard time. Prof Berger is visiting China as part of a South African delegation promoting trade, business and tourism relations between the two competitive city regions, Gauteng and Shanghai.

New discovery
“We have discovered parts of a jaw and critical aspects of the body including what appear to be a complete femur (thigh bone), ribs, vertebrae and other important limb elements, some never before seen in such completeness in the human fossil record,” says Berger. “This discovery will almost certainly make Karabo the most complete early human ancestor skeleton ever discovered. We are obviously quite excited as it appears that we now have some of the most critical and complete remains of the skeleton, albeit encased in solid rock. It’s a big day for us as a team and for our field as a whole.”

The remains are invisible to the casual observer and are entrenched in a large rock about one metre in diameter. It was discovered almost three years ago, but lay unnoticed in the Wits laboratories until early last month. Prof. Berger and his wife Jackie Smilg, a radiologist at the Charlotte Maxeke Hospital, who is conducting her PhD on the CT scanning of fossil material embedded in rock, scanned the large rock in a state of the art CT scanner.

A world first – Live Science!
In an unprecedented gesture of open access to science and public participation, the University of the Witwatersrand, the Gauteng Provincial Government and the South African national government announced that for the first time in history, the process of exploring and uncovering these fossil remains would be conducted live, captured on video, and conveyed to the world in real time. This will allow members of the public and the scientific community to share in the unfolding discovery in an unprecedented way.

The small tooth (in the centre) that was spotted and led to the discovery of the skeleton in the rock – Credit: University of the Witwatersrand

A laboratory studio, designed in collaboration with the National Geographic Society, will be built at the Maropeng Visitor Centre in the heart of the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site. It will allow the public to view the preparation of this skeleton live if they visit Maropeng, or live on the internet. “The public will be able to participate fully in Live Science and future discoveries as they occur in real time – an unprecedented moment in palaeoanthropology,” explains Berger. “The laboratory studio will be also linked to laboratories at Wits University and the Malapa site.”

“We are excited to have helped make this cutting-edge facility possible for the University of the Witwatersrand,” says National Geographic Executive Vice President Terry Garcia. “We can’t wait to watch palaeontology happening in real time.”

Gauteng MEC for Economic Development, Qedani Mahlangu, said: “We are proud to be part of this programme which proves that Gauteng is indeed a world-class City-Region at the forefront of scientific discovery and technological development. We stand shoulder to shoulder with the best in the world.”

Virtual outposts
Mahlangu also indicated that access to the laboratory studio would not be limited only to visitors to the Cradle of Humankind and the internet.

“We intend to create virtual ‘outposts’ in major partner museums around the world,” says Mahlangu. “These outposts will allow visitors to these partner museums the chance to interact with scientists in real time in a way we simply could not conceive of a few years ago. It is anticipated that the laboratory and virtual infrastructure will be built within a year, expanding our ambitious tourism and smart province infrastructure programme.”

Berger added that negotiations had begun with the Shanghai Science and Technology Museum, the Natural History Museum in the United Kingdom and the Smithsonian in Washington. “We have already donated casts of Australopithecus sediba to these three institutions, amongst others,” says Berger. “It has also just been confirmed that one of the virtual outposts will be hosted in the new Shanghai Natural History Museum due to open later this year.”

The excitement generated by the latest discovery is also shared by the National Department of Arts and Culture. The Department has hailed it as an important addition to the drive to educate South Africans, especially the youth, about their history and heritage.

Paul Mashatile, South African Minister of Arts and Culture, says: “Maropeng means the place of origin. South Africans are prepared to share this information about our history and heritage with the rest of the world, with the help of modern technology. This is history in the making, with the added dimension of being relayed live to the world as it is made.”

Berger concludes: “It’s breath-taking to actually ‘see the future’ using technology. It unlocks the potential for us to make ambitious plans to share this find with other scientists and with the public. Such an endeavour is quite literally changing the way we conduct science, and it’s a wonderful opportunity to share this magnificent discovery with the world. But, truthfully, my colleagues and I just can’t wait to get our hands on the fossils in that rock!”

Contacts and sources:
Wits Institute for Human Evolution
University of the Witwatersrand

The team launched excavation of two stone circles and one stone circle with cairn pack burial of the megalithic site early this month.

Around 20 megaliths are spread across the sprawling college campus. Some of them were dug up by anti-social elements in the past under the impression that the site contained hidden treasure.

Meanwhile, the excavation team opened the oblong chamber at one of the stone circles in the presence of media personnel. College principal S. Madhava Rao, lecturer in history John Milton, and a host of others were present.

‘No hidden treasure’
Prof. K.P. Rao said the chamber was opened in the presence of mediapersons to dispel misconceptions among the general public that the site contained treasure.

The megalithic graves contain pottery, skeletal remains, and iron objects, he said, adding that some pottery and skeletal remains were found in the oblong chamber that was opened earlier in the day.

“We are hopeful that the excavation will yield important archaeological remains of the megalithic era in the next few days,” he said.

It would not only help enhance our understanding of the hoary past, but conserve the glorious cultural heritage of the bygone era, he added.

Source: The Hindu [May 18, 2012]

They proliferated in their new environment, their population increasing tenfold in the 10,000 years after they arrived; Neanderthals declined and finally died away.

What happened? What went so wrong for the Neanderthals — and what went so right for us humans?

The cause, some theories go, may have been environmental, with Neanderthals’ decline a byproduct of — yikes — climate change. It may have been social as humans developed the ability to cooperate and avail themselves of the evolutionary benefits of social cohesion. It may have been technological, with humans simply developing more advanced tools and hunting weapons that allowed them to snare food while their less-skilled counterparts starved away.

The Cambridge researchers Paul Mellars and Jennifer French have another theory, though. In a paper in the journal Science, they concluded that “numerical supremacy alone may have been a critical factor” in human dominance — with humans simply crowding out the Neanderthals. Now, with an analysis in American Scientist, the anthropologist Pat Shipman is building on their work. After analyzing the Mellars and French paper and comparing it with the extant literature, Shipman has come to an intriguing conclusion: that humans’ comparative evolutionary fitness owes itself to the domestication of dogs.

Yep. Man’s best friend, Shipman suggests, might also be humanity’s best friend. Dogs might have been the technology that allowed early humans to flourish.

Shipman analyzed the results of excavations of fossilized canid bones — from Europe, during the time when humans and Neanderthals overlapped. Put together, they furnish some compelling evidence that early humans, first of all, engaged in ritualistic dog worship. Canid skeletons found at a 27,000-year-old site in Předmostí, of the Czech Republic, displayed the poses of early ritual burial. Drill marks in canid teeth found at the same site suggest that early humans used those teeth as jewelry — and Paleolithic people, Shipman notes, rarely made adornments out of animals they simply used for food. There’s also the more outlying fact that, like humans, dogs are rarely depicted in cave art — a suggestion that cave painters might have regarded dogs not as the game animals they tended to depict, but as fellow-travelers.

Shipman speculates that the affinity between humans and dogs manifested itself mainly in the way that it would go on to do for many more thousands of years: in the hunt. Dogs would help humans to identify their prey; but they would also work, the theory goes, as beasts of burden — playing the same role for early humans as they played for the Blackfeet and Hidatsa of the American West, who bred large, strong dogs specifically for hauling strapped-on packs. (Paleolithic dogs were big to begin with: They had, their skeletons suggest, a body mass of at least 70 pounds and a shoulder height of at least 2 feet — which would make them, at minimum, the size of a modern-day German Shepherd.) Since transporting animal carcasses is an energy-intensive task, getting dogs to do that work would mean that humans could concentrate their energy on more productive endeavors: hunting, gathering, reproducing.

The possible result, Shipman argues, was a virtuous circle of cooperation — one in which humans and their canine friends got stronger, together, over time.

There’s another intriguing — if conjecture-filled — theory here, too. It could be, Shipman suggests, that dogs represented even more than companionate technologies to Paleolithic man. It could be that their cooperative proximity brought about its own effects on human evolution — in the same way that the domestication of cattle led to humans developing the ability to digest milk. Shipman points to the “cooperative eye hypothesis,” which builds on the observation that, compared to other primates, humans have highly visible sclerae (whites of the eyes). For purposes of lone hunting, sclerae represent a clear disadvantage: not only will your pesky eye-whites tend to stand out against a dark backdrop of a forest or rock, giving away your location, but they also reveal the direction of your gaze. It’s hard to be a stealthy hunter when your eyes are constantly taking away your stealth.

Expressive eyes, however, for all their competitive disadvantage, have one big thing going for them: They’re great at communicating. With early humans hunting in groups, “cooperative eyes” may have allowed them to “talk” with each other, silently and therefore effectively: windows to the soul that are also evolutionarily advantageous. And that, in turn, might have led to a more ingrained impulse toward cooperation. Human babies, studies have shown, will automatically follow a gaze once a connection is made. Eye contact is second nature to us; but it’s a trait that makes us unique among our fellow primates.

Dogs, however, also recognize the power of the gaze. In a study conducted at Central European University, Shipman notes, “dogs performed as well as human infants at following the gaze of a speaker in tests in which the speaker’s head is held still.” Humans and their best friends share an affinity for eye contact — and we are fairly unique in that affinity. There’s a chance, Shipman says — though there’s much more work to be done before that chance can be converted even into a hypothesis — that we evolved that affinity together.

“No genetic study has yet confirmed the prevalence or absence of white sclerae in Paleolithic modern humans or in Neanderthals,” Shipman notes. “But if the white sclera mutation occurred more often among the former — perhaps by chance — this feature could have enhanced human-dog communication and promoted domestication.”

Which is another way of saying that, to the extent dogs were an evolutionary technology, they may have been a technology that changed us for the better. The old truism — we shape our tools, and afterward our tools shape us — may be as old, and as true, as humanity itself.

Author: Megan Garber | Source: The Atlantic [May 14, 2012]